If something CAN happen in a simulation that means it was SPECIFICALLY programmed to be allowed to happen. If it is there it is meant to be there and in fact it is put there specifically because it is a desired feature. It’s less like getting groped in a dance floor and more like losing your money at a poker table.
But we also have plenty of examples of games which can turn off such features. Should a delay in the person turning off “full contact” be taken as an automatic consent to whatever you want to do to them?
Very true. For example,. when setting up a hypothetical scenario for the purposes of discussion, because that hypothetical is constructed of words, the rules of that discussion specifically allow the participants to fight that hypothetical to the fucking death.
If I am understanding you correctly that is just a terribly designed simulation or game or whatever and it would never be made that way, nobody should be getting hacked to pieces with a machete because they were not quick enough to click the “don’t hack me to pieces with a machete” setting.
Just like in real life, you consent to only what you consent to.
Suppose a higher-tech VR version of a MMORPG is developed that entails a sensory feedback suit that causes some degree of pain when you die, and the game involves free-for-all fighting and killing other players on a shared battlefield. Then of course you “signed up” for that, and the analogy with losing your money at a poker table is reasonable.
But suppose a VR system is designed with a sensory feedback suit that includes your naughty bits, specifically to allow intimate encounters with real physical stimulation. Such a system could be tied to something analogous to Tinder, where you can choose to hook up with someone for consensual VR sex. Obviously in buying the VR system you are not implicitly consenting to intimate encounters with anyone. If someone hacks the system, that’s sexual assault.
And I personally know people who would love to use such a system to host large “multiplayer” orgies and the like. Free-for-all sex encounters with lots of people! But even then, they’d make a point of each encounter being consensual. Just because the Sandbox Orgy makes it possible to grope someone doesn’t mean that’s okay.
I mean, the internet is for porn. 90% of VR revenues will be from sex when the tech allows it.
Yeah, but not just sex. I mean specifically orgies, where you walk into a large group of people and engage in sex with whichever of them is appropriate. That’s where non-consensual contact would be most likely.
Sex is different than murder though. If you are signing in to a simulation with murder involved you do it knowing something you don’t want to happen to you might. Nobody wants to be hacked to death with a machete, but you still have to accept that it might happen.
Wouldn’t the default setting be “No Raping And/Or Murdering” to begin with?
You would assume so, which makes ending up in the murder part of town entirely voluntary.
There will some specialized VR environments that intrinsically entail violence, where explicit prior consent would be part of the T&C of signing up.
But there will also be VR environments that simulate “normal life” where the same default settings of consent and bodily autonomy as real life will apply. They would be likely to entail the possibility of sexual encounters (via physical feedback) that certainly require specific consent.
In real life, violence doesn’t follow the same paradigm as sex - sex is a feature that we want to be possible with consent, violence is not. In real life, violence is almost always a crime. Whereas In VR, violence can fit the sex paradigm of consensual behavior, since a VR system might allow you to experience a violent encounter with tight system-imposed constraints that prevent extreme pain or physical damage. Somewhat analogous to BDSM IRL I suppose.
If anything, I think VR will make us focus more on considerations of respect for bodily autonomy and consent in everything we do.
So here’s the thing. When you engage in a VR system (even one that provides realistic physical sensations and tactile feedback), the assumption is that you are choosing to opt in to whatever experience you are signing up for. You would presumably be able to adjust the settings to a level you feel comfortable with. The manufacturers would also have an obligation to create equipment that could not physically injure the wearer.
So to create an example:
Let’s say we’re playing a game like Battlegrounds, Fortnight or CoD or whatever and some people may want to have the “pain” settings jacked all the way up for whatever reason. Maybe they just want a hard core experience where there are real (albeit non-permanent) consequences. So if someone decides to grief another player by continuously shooting them in the balls (which they will feel) and healing them, would there be a case there? I think not. Although it might be against the terms of use for the game.
Now if someone were to create a VR environment and misrepresent what the experience actually (ie passing off an orgy sim as suitable for small children) is or hacks it in such a way as to override someone’s settings (turning the pain settings up to “intense dick-punch”), yes, I think that would be legally actionable.
“If we make cell phones inoperable we can have our horror movies back!”
It’s VR. Not real life. We can’t control everything in real life. VR we have oodles more control.
Kids can play sex games too. Should they? No. Can they? Yes. No parental supervision and they just lie about being of age. A crime? Likely not, they lied in a way that really can’t be verified.
The problem with VR is that the physical power discrepancies go away. A woman can easily play as a male avatar and assault “female” avatars (who are frequently going to be played by men.) Now any attempts to bootstrap real life assault in the VR world are going to hinge on the the victim being a woman in real life. For purposes of sympathy. A real life male playing the same avatar and meeting the same fate in VR is going to be ridiculed in real life. Because those are our real life expectations, even though VR is a new reality where we’re not limited by our current state.
What if someone sets up a bot avatar that is assaulted and tries for an assault case for an avatar they aren’t directly playing? It’s VR, not real.
We are not talking about avatars. We’re talking about physical assault on the real bodies of real people mediated by VR sensory feedback equipment.
Everything I wrote still applies. Real-world physical strength, actual anatomy, age means nothing. That leaves “morning after” type regrets where someone (again, almost certainly a real life woman for sympathy purposes) claims they didn’t understand all of the disclosures they didn’t bother to read that were put there by the gaming company. Unlike real life I think VR is going to be remarkably easy to administer.
I pointed out earlier in the thread that an advantage to VR interaction is that the physical power imbalance usually present with IRL sexual assaults could be neutralized, which is an attractive feature. But since sensory feedback operates on the real body, perhaps not completely so. And what about a hacker who adjusts the VR system settings to give them a strength advantage in order to assault someone?
Strength is a red herring, IRL or VR. Under the right conditions, a person of weak physical stature can sexually assault an unrestrained person of greater physical stature in either environment.
~Max
I wonder if anybody ever operated a touch tone sex line and got into trouble for phone sex with a minor. Or even more low tech - a mail order porno distributor that took cash (nobody wants their banker to see a transaction with some xxx company).
~Max
Perhaps not completely so. Because there are no ways to have any sort of “volume control.” /s
More What If Cell Phones Don’t Work.